2024 Forest Hill Block 5 Cabernet Sauvignon, Mount Barker

This has such beautiful form and flow. A slick, slippery and compact wine of elegant restraint despite the deep core of blue and black berry fruit character, black olive notes, sea spray, sage leaf, pepper and clove. It's so trim and taut, lengthy and impressive in its carriage of scents and flavours. A masterclass in cabernet, elegance and restraint, finesse and finery. And delicious. Drink to 2040.

96 points Mike Bennie for Halliday Wine Companion, May 2026

The latest vintage of a Great Southern classic, the 2024 vintage of Block 5 opens with black fruit aromas and lifted floral notes peppered with warming spice, subtle vanilla and bush herbs. The deep, concentrated flavours are classic Cabernet, with graphite tones and fine tannins providing texture and structural support on the impressively long finish.

With structure to cellar for a decade and further, the impatient among us might want to allow the wine to open properly up in a decanter. A prime ribeye with creamy black trumpet mushrooms would be a worthy partner, as would a cocoa and herb-crusted rack of lamb served with glossy bone-marrow jus and crispy rosemary-roasted fingerling potatoes.

More about this wine

A wet and cool start to the season resulted in poor fruit set. What was lost in yields, was won in the overall concentration of flavours and well-formed loose bunches. The mild and dry summer saw little rain until March, refreshing the vines but delaying the harvest, which in the end took place under favourable conditions in April with high expectations on wine quality.

The 2024 vintage of Block 5 is a blend of its namesake block, as well as the 6 and 7. All of these were planted in 1975 with the now legendary Houghton clone of Cabernet Sauvignon, and like the rest of Forest Hill Vineyard, are dry grown and farmed with sustainable, organic methods, even if certification has not been sought.

The fruit was hand-picked from select small sections of the old vine blocks, hand sorted at the winery and destemmed into a mixture of small, open and closed fermenters made from stainless steel, concrete and oak. The grapes were cold soaked for several days before primary fermentation, and hand plunged on taste. The pressed wine matured for 12 months in French oak hogsheads of which a quarter were new.

About Forest Hill

Forest Hill Vineyard is a family-owned business established in 1965 by Betty and Tony Pearse with guidance from the WA Department of Agricultural. It was the first commercial vineyard to planted in the Great Southern, laying foundations for a region that is today widely recognised for wines of elegance and purity. The current owners have been custodians of the historic property since 1996.

Located in the subregion of Mount Barker, the vineyard sits at 220m to 240m altitude approximately 40km from the coast. This part of the Great Southern enjoys long, temperate growing seasons with significant diurnal temperature variations, and sits at the northern edge of the Nornalup geological complex, a mix of ancient rock types that over time have weathered into deep laterite blankets, leaving ironstone gravel as the dominant soil type across the vineyard. Clay content varies from one block to another, alongside differing concentrations of gravel and loam.

Many of the original dry-grown vines planted in the 1960s continue to thrive today and remain the foundation of the wines produced. New vines are propagated from this heritage and complimented by more recent clonal material. The property is farmed with organic principals and with practical aspects of regenerative farming such as incorporation of grazing livestock, multi-species cover crops and mulch/compost applications: happy vines make good wines.